Horror Stories • Volume 1 •

Perchta

Thomas quivered under his bed sheets, scared to absolute death. 'She's here, she's here and she wants me' is what he was thinking. He shut his eyes as he heard screaming from the room next to his. Those poor little kids, she got them.

He tried to tell himself that maybe he would luck out this year like last time, but it was inevitable this year. Suddenly, all screaming ceased and pure silence reigned. Only mere seconds later, the silence was broken by heavy footsteps, coming closer and closer to his room. Yes, heavy footsteps slowly approached the room. This was it, he was doomed.

No one in history has ever survived an encounter with Perchta. He only lucked out because he woke up in need of the bathroom. Nothing could save him from the faith he was about to meet. He jumped as the door burst open with a great force, sending it flying across the room. Everyone in the room he was sharing started weeping and crying, they knew what was about to happen. Slowly, the figure stepped inside the room. As he peeked, he could only see red eyes peering at everyone, the silhouette was nothing more than a blob of black.

He saw the figure moving, moving towards the bed next to his. In it was his poor, shivering friend Robert. They had met a year ago when Robert arrived to the orphanage. He watched on, frozen in fear as the figure extended a big hand with sharp claws. It grabbed the sheets and tore them off of his friend. Robert screamed in fear but was quickly silenced by a deep, inhuman voice.

"You've been a bad, bad boy Robert. Didn't work hard enough this year, did we?"

Robert didn't speak at all. He just shivered and gulped loudly. The figure said nothing else and, with another hand, held Robert down by the head. Horrifically, the figure, with one claw from her other hand, started to lift up his shirt. Then, it slowly started impaling him with it's long, notched claw. It wiggled it's claw around, cutting and slashing a big vertical line across his belly. It let go of poor Robert's head, who was screaming in agony, only to use her other hand to pry open the flesh on his stomach. It reached inside and started pulling out whatever came to it's hand. His stomach, his liver, his intestines were all spread out on his bed. Then, it stopped to reach for something around it's back. It fumbled around in what seemed to be a rug sack and pulled out a smaller rug sack. It untied the knot closing it and spilled the contents in Roberts almost hollow mess of a body. They looked to be....straw and pebbles?

The figure dropped the rug sack and turned its attention to Thomas. He silently weeped as it came over to him, said the same words and held him down from his head. The last thing he could remember before fainting was its big, long, notched claw digging into his flesh.